


Rules, or: Communicating with Your New Boss

by sickfxcks (starflaik)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, Blackwatch Jesse McCree, Blackwatch Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Emetophilia, Gen, Sickfic, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 00:57:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16985100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starflaik/pseuds/sickfxcks
Summary: Original ask from tumblr:Anonymousoff your last fic I keep imagining Jesse walking in one day sick and Gabe assuming he’s high or drunk and prepares to chew him out up until cowboy pukes on his shoes





	Rules, or: Communicating with Your New Boss

**Author's Note:**

> HEY LOOK MORE OF THIS GARBAGE
> 
> this one can probably pass for genfic since it has threads of Actual Character Development in it, but rest assured it was just another excuse for me to write emeto.

Deadlock never offered health benefits, and a broke-ass kid doesn’t get to take sick days if he wants to eat. It was beaten into him from the time he was a boy.

So when Jesse wakes up to the alarm piercing his skull and the room lilting sideways, the first order of business is to bury his face in the lumpy, spartan bedding he’d been provided and groan every curse word in every language he has even the faintest grasp of. The second order of business is to drag himself out of bed, wobbling unsteadily on legs that feel barely connected to the rest of him, and totter into the en suite to splash some water on his face.

He checks himself over in the mirror with tired eyes–his skin is a little flushed. Probably running a fever. He’s still new enough that they don’t trust him with his own medicine cabinet, either, and that means if he wants an ibuprofin to head it off he’s in for a long walk to the medbay. Fuck it. What he really needs is a cup of coffee and some breakfast.

It’s easy enough to ignore the halos around the lights. Less so the steady pulse of pressure between his eyes, but hey, he’s muddled through worse with less to prove. Can’t be going soft just because he’s got three squares and some luxuries now. 

Skip the shower. Skip the shave. 

Just pull on some clothes and get going. If he dips his head too low it pulses like it’s full of water, and straightening up makes his stomach turn with vertigo. 

“Nothin’ you ain’t done before,” he mumbles, fighting his boots on. Once the buckles are done up and he realizes he’s not running late just yet he almost–almost–feels a little surge of confidence.

Getting to the mess, though, is an ordeal. His legs still aren’t cooperating–”Get it together, Jesse, Christ.”–and he has to take ambling, wide corners because going too fast makes all the fuzzy mess in his head sway. Someone brushes his shoulder in the hallway and he doesn’t look up from the floor–though he does catch the snort from Campbell heading in the other direction. 

“Don’t let Commander Reyes see you like that, McCree,” the other agent laughs.

Jesse curls his lip, but manages to keep to himself. It’s been a long while since he’s felt this out of sorts and all his willpower is busy keeping his feet underneath him.

–

Blackwatch starts its day a solid two hours before the rest of the Watchpoint, so the cafeteria is mostly empty in the mornings anyway. It takes him so long to get there at his lagging gait that it’s even more sparsely populated than usual, but that suits him just fine. He snags a tray, a little packet of plastic utensils, and drags on over to snatch what meager fodder is available at this hour before someone gets the actual kitchen running.

–When even approaching the coffee pot and getting a whiff of it is enough to send a repulsed shiver through his body, he grits his teeth and resigns himself to a morning sans caffeine. 

‘Coffee here tastes like shit anyway.’

A little single-serving box of cereal and paper milk carton are all he manages to grab before he starts feeling wobbly again. It will have to do. His skin prickles like there are eyes watching him pick his slow way over to a corner seat away from everyone else, but he just doesn’t have it in him to care. Food now. Food is good. Just a couple of bites to steady up before morning drills.

‘You’ve done harder on less.’

Whatever corn flakes knockoff it is looks palatable once it’s opened. The milk is still mostly cold. More importantly, the subtle smell of sugary oats and dairy doesn’t send a spike of revulsion up through his gut the way the odor of coffee had. His stomach makes a noise he actually confuses for hunger until he gets the first spoonful in his mouth.

“Hrk–!”

The moment it hits his tongue his throat seems to clamp shut, insides roiling in protest–seemingly offended he would have the gall to try and put something in them. Nausea hits him so hard he has to grab the table with his free hand to keep from swaying out of his chair.

He grimaces, too stubborn to spit it out, and with his jaw clenched so hard his teeth grind forces himself to swallow. The little lump of it feels too large and awkward sliding down his throat, and he can tell when it hits his stomach because it earns him a coiling feeling of pain. His hand moves from its white-knuckled grip on the edge of the table to his middle, pressing a closed fist inward to try and ease the sensation of his innards twisting over themselves.

It helps very little.

Tears prickle in his eyes, but after a minute the awful knot in his gut unclenches somewhat and he dares to let himself relax. Sweat is already beaded on his forehead and sticking his hair down. He glares at the little cereal carton. The mere thought of forcing down more food makes bile rise in his throat, but…

–

It takes him long enough to get it all down that the mess is empty when he stumbles to the garbage, and by then all he can think of is the unsteady churning in his belly that he can feel more than hear. Breakfast was a mistake. He chucks both cartons, the little plastic tableware, and even manages to get the tray set on the plastic rack next to the can before he finds himself listing to one side without prompting. He makes an undignified sound and clutches weakly at anything he can grab to keep from falling and is only spared by the sudden rough clutch of hands on either of his shoulders.

Thoroughly dazed, he lets himself be dragged to his feet and turned bodily around until he’s staring drunkenly at none other than one Commander Gabriel Reyes.

“Oh. ‘Sup, jefe,” he slurs with a weak grin.

“Commander,” his boss corrects. He looks very much the opposite of happy, and Jesse finds himself squirming and wilting under his stern glare.

“‘m I late to drills?” he asks, voice soft. He has to turn his eyes downward, away from the swimming lights that seem even brighter for the way they frame the other man’s face like a halo. That only seems to earn him even more of Reyes’ ire, though, because the scowl is audible when he next speaks.

“I can’t believe this–can’t fucking believe this.”

“Hwhuh? Boss, I–”

“I stuck my neck out for you, kid. Getting you brought in here. Keeping them from shipping your ass right back out after that little stunt you pulled last month–I told them you were better than that. And then Campbell finds me in the gym and tells me you’re stumbling drunk at five in the morning again. What am I supposed to tell them this time, McCree? You burned through your first and second chance already–”

“Boss–” his face is green, anxiety mingling with the powerful nausea already pooled in his middle. He wheezes and gags a little.

“No, don’t just ‘Boss’ me, kid–you remember what I told you in that holding cell. That you could do better, and here you go just throwing it–”

“B-Boss–” Shame. Burning like the acid steadily working its way up his throat. He’s too sick to be angry Reyes thinks he’s drunk, or to start plotting revenge on Campbell for trying to get him into trouble.

“McCree, for fuck’s sake, don’t interrupt me, I’m trying to save your ungrateful hide–”

He hits the wall. A single, staggering step forward and he simultaneously headbutts Reyes right in the chest and spews a burning gush of undigested cereal down the both of them. The Commander takes half a step back in alarm only to have to catch Jesse again as his legs give out entirely, his whole body more intent on purging everything from its system than keeping him upright.

“ ¡Mierda–kid–Jesse–Hey! Hey!”

He hiccups miserably and heaves, this time bringing up a good amount of air before expelling anymore liquid, and this time it’s all bile that leaves his throat and mouth burning even after it’s joined the rest on Reyes’ shoes. It takes another watery belch and full-body retch before he can even look up, still standing only with assistance and now with bloodshot, watery eyes and a sheen of saliva drooling down his chin.

“You’re burning up, kid,” Reyes says quietly.

“Ain’t had a drop to drink, Boss,” Jesse rasps, clutching at the hands holding him steady, “Not a one. I promise. Said I wouldn’t, ‘n my word’s–all I got.”

Gabe closes his eyes briefly and heaves a ragged sigh.

“I’m sorry for coming down on you so hard, mijo,” he says, voice much, much softer now, brows creased with concern instead of irritation. He’s gentle when he gives McCree a firmer tug to get his feet back under him.

“Should have said you were sick. I don’t want to be a hardass, but you’re–”

“Takin’ years off the end of your life, yeah, jefe, you told me,” Jesse manages to get his watery smile back in place. 

“Come on. Let’s get you to the medbay.”

That makes Jesse go stiff.

“Real funny, Boss, I’m fine. Got it all out, I can–”

“I’m giving you another choice here, kid. You can go to the medbay, or you can go to the janitor’s closet and get a mop to start cleaning this mess up. Either way you’re not running drills today. I’d like to keep you alive and the rest of my agents off the floor with whatever you managed to catch.”

“So… uh. Y’all do paid sick leave, or…?”


End file.
